Condi’s Sunday Shows
I’m going to continue my series on Scottie McC’s chronology, but I wanted to talk about two more details surrounding the September 27 weekend first. This post is about what Condi knew and when she knew it.
I pointed out last week that it appears that Condi testified to having some kind of conversation with Bush about Rove’s involvement in the Plame leak.
Waxman tells us what is redacted in Scottie’s interview report.
In his FBI interview, Mr. McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee.
And he implies that that’s what was redacted from the other interviews, as well.
Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.
There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan’s discussions with the President and the Vice President.
From which we might conclude that those redacted passages in the Rove, Libby, Cathie Martin, and Condi interview reports are, at the very least, about conversations with Bush or Cheney, and possibly, discussions specifically about the exoneration of Rove and Libby.
We know Rove could have testified about this–Scottie McC’s book tells us that Rove told Bush directly that he was "innocent." Similarly, we know that Libby had such conversations with Cheney–in fact, passages describing those conversations appear, totally unredacted, in the grand jury testimony.
I’m not surprised that Cathie Martin had a conversation with (probably) Cheney about the leak. After all, the one email that had been destroyed and was subsequently turned over to prosecutors shows Martin and Jenny Mayfield closely watching for Scottie’s exoneration of Libby. So we know that Mayfield and Martin were following that exoneration.
But Condi? We know almost nothing about Condi’s testimony.
Now I’m just guessing from the context that that testimony might pertain to a conversation between Rice and Bush about which of Bush’s top aides had claimed to be innocent of the leak. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Bush went out of his way to tell Condi that Rove didn’t leak Plame’s name?
Which is why I find it all the more interesting that Scottie McC was asked–in his February 6, 2004 grand jury appearance–whether he had told Condi to exonerate Rove on the Sunday shows on September 28, 2003.
But there were a couple of questions they had not asked [in his FBI interviews]. Zeidenberg asked whether I’d told Condi Rice that she should say that Karl was not involved before she went on the Sunday talk shows back on September 28, 2003. (Rice hadn’t in fact addressed this specific topic on those shows.)
I thought hard. I knew I’d spoken to Condi that Saturday–the same Saturday I’d called Rove after first learning that he’d spoken to Novak and he’d assured me he had not been involved in leaking classified information–as I usually did with administration officials ahead of their Sunday show appearances. It was a way to prep them for responses to likely questions and make sure everyone was on the same page; we knew the Sunday Post piece would likely prompt questions about possible White House involvement in the leak. Had I coached Condi on what to say to Karl Rove?
I said I might have but could not remember with certainty. I indicated it was more likely I told her what I’d said publicly, and suggested she could refer back to what I said without getting into it herself.
For some reason, Peter Zeidenberg had been led to believe that Scottie McC might have been instructing Condi to exonerate Rove on the Sunday shows (and remember, by this point, they would have had a slew of talking point documents the likes of which this White House used to prep for things like Sunday shows).
Using that information–and the suggestion from Waxman that some of Condi’s testimony, potentially related to conversations with George Bush about exonerating Rove or Libby, was redacted–let’s tweak the chronology I did in this post.
September 16: Rove tells Scottie McC he wasn’t one of Novak’s sources
September 26: NBC leaks news of investigation
September 27: Allen calls Rove, implying Rove is one of the 2 officials implicated in the 1X2X6 article; Rove tells Scottie McC a different story than he told him on September 16, admitting he talked to Novak, but denying he confirmed Plame’s identity
September 27: Someone apparently instructs Rice "that she should say that Karl was not involved" on the Sunday shows
September 28: The WaPo reports the 1X2X6 story
September 29: George Bush tells Scottie McC that "Rove didn’t do it"
Someone was wandering around instructing people to say "Rove didn’t do it." And Scottie McC doesn’t think it was him.
I suggest that “someone” was Karl Rove. Do I win a prize?
Dunno. I guess if that someone was Bush himself, then Condi might have done it. I’m as struck by the fact that she didn’t say it in the Sunday shows (though there must be evidence she was instructed to), as by the question of how so instructed her.
Then again, Waxman’s letter at least implies that the context of this suggests a conversation with Bush or Cheney about Rove or Libby.
Here’s what Rice said on MTP:
MR. RUSSERT: Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent over to Niger by the CIA to look into this whole matter of selling uranium to Iraq. He came back with a report which was given to the administration. Then there was an article by columnist Robert Novak which cited two administration sources and identified Ambassador Wilson’s wife by name. She was an undercover agent at the CIA. There is now an investigation. The CIA has requested the Justice Department to look into this. It’s a crime to identify an undercover agent. And in this article in today’s Washington Post, a senior administration official said that White House officials called six reporters to identify, to out, if you will, Joe Wilson’s wife. What can you tell us about that?
DR. RICE: Tim, I know nothing about any such calls, and I do know that the president of the United States would not expect his White House to behave in that way. It’s my understanding that when a question like this is raised before the agency, that they refer it as a matter of course, a matter of routine to the Justice Department. The Justice Department will now take appropriate action, whatever that is, and that will be up to the Justice Department to determine what that action is.
MR. RUSSERT: What will the president do? Will he bring people in and ask them what they did?
DR. RICE: I think it’s best since it’s in the hands of the Justice Department to let it remain there.
********
And on Fox News Sunday:
HUME: Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was asked to inquire in Africa about what Saddam Hussein might have been doing there in terms of acquiring nuclear materials, ended up with his wife’s name in the paper as a CIA person. There are now suggestions that the name and her identity and her CIA work had been revealed by the White House. What do you know about that?
RICE: I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate.
My understanding is that, in matters like this, as a matter of routine, a question like this is referred to the Justice Department for appropriate action, and that’s what’s going to be done.
SNOW: Well, when the story came out — his wife’s name is in the paper — was it known in the White House that she was a CIA employee?
RICE: I’m not going to go into this, Tony, because the problem here is this has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that’s the appropriate place…
SNOW: Well, but it is revealing, or it’s important to figure out what the White House reaction was at the time. For years and years and years, for instance, the administrations chased Phillip Agee all around the globe because he had revealed the name of a CIA officer. This is a grave offense, if you have CIA officers.
Was there, at least within the White House, a gasp when somebody said, “Uh oh”? And if so, did the White House take any action, back then in June, when the story appeared?
RICE: Well, it was well known that the president of the United States does not expect the White House to get involved in such things. We will see…
HUME: You mean the revelation of names?
RICE: Anything of this kind. But let’s just see what the Justice Department does. It’s with the appropriate channels now, and we’ll see what the Justice Department — how the Justice Department disposes of it.
SNOW: But there was nobody at the White House at the time who was saying, “Oh, we’ve got a problem here”?
RICE: Tony, I don’t remember any such conversation. But I will say this: The Justice Department gets these things as a matter of routine. They will determine the facts. They will determine what happened, they will determine if anything happened. And they’ll take appropriate action.
SNOW: Do you think the White House should release phone logs, if necessary, to figure out who talked to whom?
RICE: Tony, as a matter of course, when the Justice Department is looking into something, of course the White House cooperates.
(h/t to Josh Marshall for preserving the Fox bit, it has disappeared from their website)
Kind of makes clear that the WH knew of the DOJ referral prior to the morning of the 29th.
You know, one thing is clear and that’s Scottie and some others brainstormed on this before the 28th, bc Rice’s lines on the 27th are just like what Scottie said on the 28th.
And of course, it requires noting that Rice was asked by Russert, Snow, and Hume about this. Russert and Hume were the two people whom Cheney went to to pretend he authorized the leak. And I’ve always believed the WH could veto questions from these guys, certainly from Hume.
Really, really telling. Thanks for digging those up.
That’s the telling bit to me. We now know Bush authorized at least the release of the NIE, because McC told us so. We also suspect Bush approved the leak of Plame’s identity because of McC’s chronic parsing. And here is Condi, saying the President would not expect his WH to behave in that way, yet he authorized exactly the conduct that Condi is trying to condemn in the President’s stead. She is not speaking for herself here, she is speaking for him. Yep, there was a lot of brainstorming going on over at the WH.
It immediately struck me that Rice’s locution here is on its face evasive. To say that he “would not expect his WH to behave in that way” is not the same as saying that they didn’t behave that way. It strikes me as a way of appearing to say “no” while not actually saying “no.” Something smells fishy.
Bob in HI
TPM has an item up about the fact that Rove met Abramoff on street corners.
So perhaps Rice is correct in stating that ‘calls’ were not made.
Who was meeting on the street corners, and in the bars?
My vote goes to Bush telling Condi it wasn’t Rove, just as he blurted it out to McC (although I also suspect that Rove was the one who put Bush up to it).
The beauty of Rove’s strategy here is that denials are issued by others – Bush, McClellan, etc. – but rarely by Rove himself. But Rove’s side of conversations, at least with Bush, are protected by privilege. As with his use of the MSM, it’s not the truth of his statements, but that he gets them repeated by so many others. The battle is over public perception and to intimidate investigators – “Gee, the President said he didn’t do it.” In 2003, that went a long way.
Thanks ew.
digg
Just got the email re: McClellan accepting Conyers’ invite from Robert Wexler.
I responded to him and to my rep, Zoe Lofgren, that they need to study Marcy’s website BEFORE the June 20th meeting. I think the last hearing re: Plame was not as fruitful as it might have been if more of the HJC members had educated themselves with the details as supplied and analyzed by our Marcy
Condi seems to confirm that discussing this matter and having their discussions referred to the Justice Department are commonplace. I don’t understand how internal conversations can regularly require opinion or knowingly be extra legal enough to require referred to the DOJ. Is our DOJ unable or unwilling to investigate? She is clearly aware of the facts surrounding the question as she gives the nice way out to protect the codpiece. Methinks her testimony under oath has been less than forthcoming.
What make of this tense change from the future tense to the past tense in consecutive answering sentences? Is Condi crumbling a bit here?
“What to”, even.
Condi must think that it is so unfair that someone is trying to force her to testify against her husband or his wishes.
Perhaps the Administration welcomes the McClellan testimony circus as a way to distract us from noticing that the Bush Administration has lead us to $5.00/gallon gas. Mission Accomplished, jawbone boy.
…”Zeidenberg asked whether I’d told Condi Rice that she should say that Karl was not involved…
Really? What exactly did Z ask?
The above Q seems McC’s paraphrase of Z with perhaps misleading spin. Why would Z ask so limiting a Q, to which McC could easily dodge if, e.g., McC had used a different wording to Condi?
And the dodge was “I said I might have but could not remember with certainty. I indicated it was more likely I told her what I’d said publicly, and suggested she could refer back to what I said without getting into it herself.” Isn’t that equivalent to leading Condi into exactly what she did say? So, again, what was Z’s exact question?
Dan Bartlett was the communications director back when all this was going on, wasn’t he? He was involved in the initial pushback against Wilson after Wilson’s initial op-ed ran. You gotta figure if there was a coordinated response and communications strategy to build a narrative about who knew what and when, then the communications director would have been the guy doing the coordinating. He’s certainly been one of the main mouthpieces attacking Scottie over the past few weeks. Think about what we’ve been seeing – they’re trying to destroy Scott’s credibility: “were you lying then? or are you lying now?” When Matt Dowd came out against the administration couple years back, the reaction was sharp, but nothing like this. The pushback against Scottie has been wildly intense. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that they’re terrified of the guy. Think about it – if Scottie comes out with some kind of information at the House hearings about how everyone was working behind the scenes to tamp it all down, Fitz might just decide to go back and reinterview a few people. Worse case scenario for the GOP: the investigation gets reopened with President Obama sitting in the White House.
And among those people, how about presumptive HUBRIS source Adam Levine? Starting at page 317 of my first-print edition HUBRIS has Levine on Sept. 26 evening downing cocktails with among others then-WaPo now-ThePolitico.com’s Mike Allen – credited as co-author with Dana Priest of 1×2×6 – when MSNBC posts its story of the CIA asking the DOJ to investigate the PLeak: “CIA Seeks Probe of White House” – & that Plame had been “confirmed” as covert & saying “I got to go…I got to follow up on this” just before he “dashed off”…
whereupon HUBRIS segues to the very next morning into one of those tick-tock montages of Allen calling & e-mailing Levine “repeatedly” throught the day & mentioning that while Allen was claiming not to “know who made the calls” nonetheless mentioning that “Rove had been involved” …
& culminating in a scene at 3 p.m. on Sept. 27 [now on page 318] with Spot wagging his tail into Levine’s office to find Condi seeking counsel on her impending guest shots the next a.m. on MTP & FauxNoose Sunday, with Levine passing on that Allen was sniffing around & urging Condi to the time-proven “traditional dodge” of it being inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation … yet SPOTTIE pressing her to “knock it down”, apparently with the sort of aggressive denial his own presser on Sept. 29 would seem to qualify as, with this:
“McClelland told Levine that he had spoken to Rove & Rove had assured him he had nothing to do with the CIA leak [&} wanted to push back hard & say that the White House’s top aides had played no role in the disclosure” …
which as HUBRIS then notes “would soon become the White House’s official line”.
Oh yeah, Spot’s just a victim here.
Nice, thanks for that.
I have a new theory about the precipitating issue for appointing Fitz.
When Scottie McC was interviewed by teh FBI, they sent a WHCO minder along. So they knew the content of the interview.
If they did it for Scottie, I presume they tried to do so for Levine.
They fired Levine in December–I think it was shortly before Fitz was appointed. If they found otu Levine was fired as retaliation for his testimony, they’d have to appoint a SC.
Just who was a member of WHIG back when the Wilson editorial came out? I’ll bet all of ‘em were involved in the blowback. And I’ll bet someone in the group knew who Plame was. Wouldn’t surprise me if it were Rover or Chainy– they’ve been known to keep extensive personnel files.
Has anyone reconstructed WHIG meetings around that time?
Bob in HI
There’s a reference to a meeting in late July in Scottie’s book which sounds like what they might have been after in the WHIG stuff. I’ll get to it, but no time soon.
I definitely agree with this. I think (though I’m not sure) that it’s because they were always terrified of the Plame investigation but had been largely successful in seeding a narrative that made it not so bad.
Just finished watching Olberman. First, he played much of the precious tape of the attempted ambush interview of Bill Moyers at the NCMR in Minneapolis this past weekend. Secondly Keith interviewed Scottie after his forthcoming June 20 appearance before the HJC had been announced earlier today. It sounded like he’s going to let it all hang out. Beer and popcorn please.
Moyers “Bill O’Reilly does not have the courage to come on to my show” You can say that again.
Marcy: Who’s Levine???? I can’t remember! Also, would Fitz have ignored a firing after testimony? Sounds like the kind of thing that would have caught his attention at the time.
Pinson, it took me way too long to discover the uses of Wikipedia for the Plame case. Try this link for ‘plame + levine’.
Hope it helps!
Try this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…..#038;go=Go
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MNChuck, it’s remarkable to note that only two weeks ago, KO started an interview with McC by asking, “Which of us do you think is more surprised to be here [talking together]?” They both seemed a bit shocked and a little awkward. Tonight’s interview was so much more probing and thoughtful than most of what passes for political discussion that it’s startling.
McC is still saying only nice things about GWBush. But the release of the SSCI report and Richard Clarke’s book reverberate some of the issues that McC raises; it’s as if some kind of a convergence is happening.
Thanks Tea.
“RICE: Tony, I don’t remember any such conversation. But I will say this: The Justice Department gets these things as a matter of routine. They will determine the facts. They will determine what happened, they will determine if anything happened. And they’ll take appropriate action.”
“the Justice Department gets these things as a matter of routine” Jesus Mary and Joseph it is one thing for Condi to keep attempting to cover Bush’s lying ass. It is quite another for her to imply that the Justice Dept gets “these things” (the outing of a CIA undercover agent by administrations officials) as a matter of routine. What a crock of hogwash. That is despicable and so disrespectful to Valerie Plame Wilson’s service to her country.
I mean what are you so upset about Wilson’s …this type of outing happens “as a matter of routine”. Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice should be deeply ashamed of herself.
I think it’s worse that than. She can’t simply blame Bush.
He got ideas FROM HER.
She’s appalling.